Queer late/r life sex Women and non-binary people's unruly stories

Ageing often remains defined in contradicting narratives that pose ageing as decline or that promise “successful ageing” when sexual attractiveness and sexual availability are maintained. This dissertation centralizes the stories of people in positions that remain marginalized and invisibilized in studies on ageing, namely queer women, lesbians, bisexual women, trans women, and non-binary people. The dissertation builds upon more than forty interviews with participants between the ages of 44 and 86, as well as participant observation in various research settings (queer spaces/events, digital dating platforms, and a queer advocacy group for old/er LGBTQ+ people). This dissertation’s analysis pays careful attention to the participants’ life course trajectories, their experiences with sex late/r in life, and several stories of not (or no longer) having and/or wanting sex. In line with assemblage thinking, the analysis paid careful attention to the entangledness of materiality, discourse, and un/expected components related to sex late/r in life. Age-related, embodied change at times produced anxieties about the future, but also reshaped understandings of sex and intimacy in a move away from orgasm- and genitality-oriented understandings of sex. New or changing relations to sex included unruly ways of experiencing (sexual) pleasure, reconceptualizing new and/or existing relationships, and incorporating unruly affects and practices into the understanding of sex and intimacy. As non-normative ways of having sex, of relating to sex, and relating to others (re)configured as a result of growing old/er, the results of this research are potentially applicable to much more women’s experiences of late/r life sex and intimacy.