By Rae Francoeur

At 61, I can no longer deny evidence of aging. There is hip pain upon waking. There is the need to hug the right when jogging so all the other runners can pass more easily. There is the growing friendship with my colorist, whom I now see more than my daughter.

And there is the sex. It’s never been better.

Who expects to hear this? And who would have guessed? Certainly not me. I had a dry spell of five years in my fifties and figured sex was a thing of the past, like flared jeans. Good riddance to that, I thought.

Wrong. The best thing about getting older is having sex with my 70-year-old lover. I would describe him this way: handsome, hot, virile. He’s incredibly adept with hands and tongue and lips and penis. My role in all of this? Enthusiastic partner. Responsive lover. Writer spreading the word.

I hate it when people think old is a synonym for over.

In fact my best audience for this particular message has come as a shock. My most attentive and enthusiastic readers are younger men and women whose eyes I’ve seen widen with the realization that, yes, one’s sex life doesn’t end when the grandchildren bounce on the knee. That knee bouncing and that baby tossing we do are, in actuality, effective limbering exercises for what comes later in the bedroom.

Older sex is quite athletic, quite daring, quite informed by years of experience. And that’s it. The key. Older sex is hot because it’s everything that came before absent the burden of immaturity and enhanced by exquisite gratitude for what we have. Older sex is transformative. And good for you.

Young people, hearing me speak or read from my book about my late-in-life love affair, are quite delighted to learn that they have 60, not 30 years of good sex ahead of them. I know, this sounds a bit greedy, but I embrace greed. It’s a fabulous motivator.

It’s true, my lover and I are extremely fortunate to have all the necessary parts functioning in somewhat the same way as they did when we were half our ages. At times, we turn to K-Y for a little assist. And we make other allowances. In the evening, after a martini to relax us and focus our attention not on our troubles but on each other, he takes the time to light candles. It’s his way of saying, Don’t hold back. Don’t hide anything from me.

Age presents certain inevitabilities: gravity’s effects, facial etchings carved by so many moments of joy and sadness, the iridescent inscription my daughter made across my hipbones when she waited 9.5 months to be born. I am reformed by my life. Yet, in the light of a few flickering candles, my naked lover standing, awaiting my entry into the bedroom, I am so so ready for this. I like this part of aging. When we kiss each other, we are unencumbered. Finally.

Maturity has its benefits.

Rae Francoeur’s new book, “Free Fall: A Late-in-Life Love Affair,” is now available in bookstores and online. See her blog freefallrae.blogspot.com. She can be reached at rae.francoeur@verizon.net.