Old age spells the end of your sex life, doesn’t it?
Well, not according to Tamborine Mountain resident, Doreen Wendt-Weir, who has spent her later years not only having sex – she boasts her last tryst was at the tender age of 81 – but writing about it.
Her book, Sex in your Seventies: And Even Your Eighties, hit the shelves after fellow university students encouraged her to write it when their studies showed a gap in the market.
And not content to fade into the background she wrote her last book, Gardening In Your Nineties: The Sequel to Sex in Your Seventies, three years ago at the age of 93.
Now at 96 she still enjoys imparting her wisdom.
“Men have taken women for granted and we women should be more assertive,” she stated. “It would be better for everybody if we were.”
“You must be affectionate. If you can’t touch your spouse on the arm in the kitchen there’s not much hope for you in the bedroom.”
After separating from her husband, whom she has four children with, she went on to have three more relationships and Gardening in your Nineties, while partly a memoir, is also the story of her final love.
“My children hated it when I wrote sex in your seventies. They’d say, ‘whatever you do don’t mention that book’, but as time has gone on they are quite proud of me,” she smiled.
“I did receive a bit of flack and it was quite hurtful. It’s just narrow mindedness and the world has come around since then.”
Despite not finishing high school due to the war, Doreen went on to become a midwife, until she married and had children.
At the age of 71 she decided to go to university and did a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Indigenous studies, becoming the first to graduate from the course. She also studied creative writing and journalism as part of her degree.
As a result of her first book, she became a regular for several years on The Morning Show as Dear Doreen, offering advice to older people on sex and relationships.
“People are getting up to a lot of things in their old age that we don’t expect they would. Men still pursue women regardless of their age,” she said.
“It’s covert instead of overt.”
Doreen attributes her passion for gardening and growing her own organic food for her good health, as well as keeping busy sewing, cooking and with her children.
“I’m just a normal woman, perhaps a little bit out of the ordinary, but I’m not hot-to-trot,” she states.