Naked: Still Horny After All These Years

Ah, yes. Baby Boomers and sex.  

In Naked, Rachel Dretzin’s Webby-nominated series produced by the New York Times Magazine, ten New York-area consenting adults, whose vintage falls somewhere between Tony Soprano and Hilary Clinton, bear it all – but, thankfully, only literally.

The candid succession of interviews passes from one Boomer to another in one-minute excerpts, as each of the participants speaks openly about his or her sex life – or sad lack thereof. And really, I guess it’s no surprise that the generation who championed free love is still gunning to keep its motor running.

Spanning the philosophical to the primal, the testimonials are quick glimpses at a lot of history, but the most striking is a confessional by a woman named Lyn Neeley, a 57-year-old biology teacher – a high school biology teacher.

Can you imagine if your high school science teacher was online talking about her sex life? It doesn’t help she exposes that she’s in a sexless 6-year relationship with one of her co-workers – a man – after two long-term relationships with women. I’m sorry, but if I were fifteen and a student in Ms. Neeley’s biology class, that video would go viral faster than you could say, “lesbian gym teacher.”

###Another vignette that stands out, for a serious reason, is about John Hockenberry, an award-winning journalist and book author from Brooklyn who has been in a wheelchair since surviving a car accident when he was 19. In what would be considered a major case of TMI under any other circumstance, Hockenberry, who is married with four children, speaks about the first time he goes all the way – I mean,really all the way – with his wife of 11 years.

If you thought middle-aged guys talking about Viagra was a bit embarrassing, then you’ll be sure to squirm at Hockenberry’s unflinching description of how he’s able todo it, but, at the same time, it’s really quite enlightening. (Still, each time he says ‘nipples,’ I get a little giggly.)

Some of the people in Naked present an affirming attitude toward mid-life copulating, while some have lost the verve for it, and in one all-too-real instance, one 60-something woman speaks unabashedly about hearing form her husband that she’s let herself go and that he’s not attracted to her anymore. It’s touching, and you hope that some wealthy, single New York bachelor will be equally touched and sweep her up off her feet to make all well, good, and sexy again.

Naked poses an interesting dichotomy. If you’re young, chances are, you have little to no interest in hearing about the sexual habits of your elders, particularly the 55+ crowd, and yet, there might just be a part of you that feels somewhat relieved that the AARP demographic thinks about sex just as much as the Laguna Beach generation.