Each year the College of Sexual and Relationship Therapists (COSRT) holds an annual conference, and often our journal, Sexual and Relationship Therapy (SRT), has a special issue that coincides with the topic to be showcased. This year the topic for the annual COSRT conference is “Sex through the Ages—From Cradle to Grave” and thus, this special issue aligns seamlessly, as it is focused on sexuality across the lifespan and life course. Lifespan and life course sexuality is essential to discuss with our clinical participants, as we all grow and change over our lived experience, including sexually. Yet, many people have little knowledge about such changes, and even scholars continue to know little about certain stages across the lifespan in relation to sexuality, specifically childhood, late adulthood, and death (Gussaroff, Citation1998; Lindau et al., Citation2007; Papalia & Martorell, Citation2014).
At the annual COSRT conference, the various presenters will examine the physiological, emotional, and/or relational aspects of each life stage (i.e. beginning of life, early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, emerging/young adulthood, middle adulthood, late adulthood, and ending of life) as it relates to sexual health. In this special issue, Volume 34(2), we have attempted to do something similar. Thus, we have included articles focused on young adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood on topics ranging from meaning-making of ‘virginity’ to predictors of extradyadic sex in young adults in heterosexual relationships to the impact of prescribed sexual activity on long-term heterosexual couples to discussions of later life sexuality, particularly from the point of view of women.
As the saying goes, “If you don’t use it, you lose it”—meaning if you want to be sexually healthy and active as you age, you need to stay healthy and active physically, mentally, relationally, and sexually throughout your lifespan (Papalia & Martorell, Citation2014). My hope is that the information in this special issue helps you and your clinical participants in doing so, as does what you glean from our upcoming annual COSRT conference.
References
- Gussaroff, E. (1998). Denial of death and sexuality in the treatment of elderly patients. Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, 15(1), 77–91. Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1998-12279-004
- Lindau, S. T., Schumm, L. P., Laumann, E. O., Levinson, W., O'Muircheartaigh, C. A., & Waite, L. J. (2007). A study of sexuality and health among older adults in the United States. The New England Journal of Medicine, 357(8), 762–774. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa067423
- Papalia, D. E., & Martorell, G. (2014). Experience human development (13th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.